


wasteland gifts

by Tyellas



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Body Horror, Cannibalism, Character Study, Charity Auctions, Driving Lesson, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Gen, Gift Fic, Gore, Hand Jobs, Max Has A Dog, Medical Procedures, Menstrual Sex, Nux Lives, Oral Sex, Sex Education, last bunch of gooey warnings there is for Ch 4 only, lubrication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-18
Updated: 2018-09-18
Packaged: 2019-02-01 17:39:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12709743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyellas/pseuds/Tyellas
Summary: Mad Max short pieces written as gifts and auction prizes! Includes:the driver's privilege- Nux Lives AU. Capable and Nux find some redemption, a driving lesson, and an intimate encounter.Helping HandsWho else lives? The Organic Mechanic! And he's a man with a plan in Gastown...rub along- Furiosa brings something back from Gastown that makes Max feel guilty and generous.Latest:the bath- A little Wasteland angst, a little fluff, a little smut, all around the indulgence of…a post-apocalyptic bath for Max and Furiosa.





	1. the find

**Author's Note:**

  * For [battle_cat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/battle_cat/gifts), [SilverDagger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverDagger/gifts), [redcandle17](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redcandle17/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For battle-cat, an Fandom Loves Puerto Rico auction drabble. The prompt: "a happy moment with Max and Furiosa." A little follow-up to [Very Max, Much Wasteland, Such Dog.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5342645)

Furiosa had tried to keep track of how long she’d been on the road with Max. But their days out in the Wasteland had blurred, reshuffled. Some were lost to fighting and crisis, others to sheer monotony. She’d remember this day, though.

The flat landscape was hazed by a touch of shrubbery. They’d driven through three or four areas like this, always fading back into desert. Places like this provided cover – and threats. Furiosa was tense and sour as she scanned, then caught movement in the landscape.

“Incoming,” she’d snapped, and hoisted the rifle.

“Saw it too,” Max muttered.

Max did something utterly unexpected. He stopped the car.

Furiosa’s nerves were screaming. The last people they’d seen had been borderline sane. But… "Only saw one. You know what solos are like."

“Mmmmph,” Max grunted, giving her an eloquent look. “You’ll cover?”

At Furiosa's terse nod, he stepped out of the car. Simply stood there.

When the _incoming_ was close enough for her to register that it had four feet, not two, she heard Max say, “Hey. Hey there.”

An animal!

It was some dog or dingo or hybrid. It was small and ribby, reddish under its dust. It bounced up to Max, uttering whuffling barks.

Max went to his knees. “Hey there.” The dog wove around Max, nosing him, slithering around his legs, popping up under his arm. And Max was –

Smiling. Smiling like she’d hardly ever seen.

When the dog began to run around him in circles, Max stood up. The animal zoomed over to the car, did a figure-eight around it and Max, then ran over to the passenger side. The window there was a few shards and a memory. Still, Furiosa wasn’t prepared when the animal popped up, forepaws on the door, to set its ears back at the sight of her. They both yelped in shock.

“It’s all right,” Max managed. “’S all right.”

The dog dashed back to Max. Furiosa unfolded from the car, taking it all in. Max laughing and protective. The animal alive, a sign of some green place nearby. It had to be very close.

They'd found it.

“All right,” she repeated, feeling her own smile bloom.

Because, for once, it really was.

 


	2. the geas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another Fandom Loves Puerto Rico 2017 auction prize for SilverDagger. Toast doesn't believe in ghosts, but she's still haunted by a Rock Rider's death. One of the Vuvalini knows what to do. A minor follow-up to [Gastown Nights.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4515567/chapters/10270788)

Toast awoke to Citadel darkness, frozen with terror. When she could move, she jerked upright, forcing a gasp. It was too late to scream. The dream was over.

There hadn’t been much to it. Only moonlight, when the moon was dark right now, and the _presence_. Seething. Restless. Its silhouette against the moonlight was injured, broken. Unspeakable horror hovered around it, in its obscured face and the shadows behind.

It was the fifth time she’d felt the presence in a row. It was time to do what she kept telling the Dag to do when her own mind betrayed her: go see the healers.

Toast settled back and made herself breathe until dawn.

To pass the time, she made herself think. Why, of all the deaths caused by the wheels of the Fury Road, that one? Not Angharad, Miss Giddy, Keeper of the Seeds. Not even the Immortan. Furiosa herself had named it the Fury Road’s last death: a Rock Rider, picking a death duel for vengeance against the former Imperator. And why after three hundred and more days – no, that was easy enough. The count of days was drawing close to another Amnesty. That was Gastown’s periodic frenzy of trade, migration, and entertaining bloodbaths. The last Amnesty had brought Furiosa and the Rock Rider together. Toast had forced her way into the duel's audience. Her reward had been to watch the warrior who'd won their freedom kill another woman.

The sun hadn’t finished rising when Melita, the main Vuvalini healer, raised her eyes to Toast. “You’re here early. And dressed for a fight. Or for travel.” Toast paused. Without thinking, she had covered up in all her clothes: layers, scarves, a vest. “Which is it?”

“Neither. Something’s on my mind. Can I talk it out with you?”

Melita gestured her over. She was counting some supplies. “Talk to me while I work.” She leaned back over the supplies, her faded red braids falling forwards.

Toast had thought it would be hard to get the words out, but she had told the story before she knew it. She finished with, “This is like what Miss Giddy said – it’s a trauma. Something wrong with my head. I need to get over it. I need to sleep. What do I do?”

Melita sighed, deeply. “If it had happened here, you’d be right. Not that this place doesn’t have spirit. But this is a Rock Rider matter.”

Toast put her hands on her hips. “How can it be different for different people?”

Melita slid the last tray of supplies into place and walked away, to one of the new balconies. They faced west. On this side of the Citadel, it was still shady out there. “Different people have different ways of being. I’ve heard your line here: the Immortan is dead, there are no more gods, no curses, no Valhalla. But it’s a Rock Rider who died. And they have a different truth.” Melita kept her eyes on the horizon. “Tell me everything you recall about how she died.”

Toast leaned on the balcony’s edge beside her. That story, told in full, took more sifting. Toast noted how Melita nodded and hummed on hearing how the Rock Rider’s people claimed her body. She went grim and shrunken when Toast described what she'd done after the fatal fight: unpicking the dead woman’s hair from Furiosa’s arm, then confronting her.

Melita was silent at the end. Then, she asked, “What happened to the Rock Rider’s hair?”

“Furiosa wouldn’t take it. It’s.” Toast clapped a hand over the vest pocket over her heart. “It’s _here_.”

Melita’s composure dissolved into relief. “Then this is simple. Take it and put it with her body. With her grave.”

“That’s it?” Toast couldn’t believe it was that easy. Eerily, her schedule was light. “It's a half-day ride. I’ll go today.”

“I’m coming with you.”

Toast cocked an eyebrow at the old woman. “Melita. You’re a healer.”

“That’s why I’m coming. _They_ know me…from the Wastes.” She meant the Rock Riders. 

Through the long rigamarole of extracting themselves from the Citadel, neither Toast nor Melita said much to each other. They were too busy saying ‘No’ to everyone who wanted to come with them. By the time they were alone, they were on light bikes coursing the crude, dry eastern road, racing the sun. Toast felt herself flying like the bike. It was good to be doing something. Putting something right.

When Toast started to remember the landscape, she roared over the road noise, “We're about halfway!"

Melita shook her head and pulled offroad. Saving her voice, she waited until their engines were cut before speaking. “I need to rest up in this heat.” The old woman leaned back with a grimace, cracking her back. “Help me off this hunk of metal, will you? Bloody sciatica.”

Toast took in how the Vuvalini camped: draping the bike to hide any gleams of metal, setting up a half-tarp, hiding herself. Once Toast had drifted to sit, Melita proffered a canteen. Toast did her best to drink Wasteland-style, leaving half the water for later.

Melita observed, “ _Wordburger: Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun_. I’d add, those who don’t want to meet Buzzards. And try not to go alone. You don’t need a bloody mob like the War Boys, but a pair, at least. Valkyrie was a bad one for going alone.”

“Furiosa did that, the night of the Rock Rider’s duel. She had War Boys with her, but…”

“Not one of us.” Melita muttered. Toast's mouth quirked. “Counts as alone, if you ask me. Sometimes, though…”

Toast braced herself to be told what she already knew. That a thousand things could go wrong at a Gastown death duel. That there hadn’t been much Toast could do, to stop the duel or help Furiosa: that she had been a hindrance, in the end. That they were here now, in the Wasteland’s heat and risk, because what she’d done had haunted her.

It didn’t come. Toast leaned over and peered at Melita beneath her wraps.

Melita was asleep.

Toast let herself smile, a little. She kept a rifle at the ready until Melita stirred.  

They finished their ride in efficient, grimy quiet. At the ochre foothills, Toast took in, again, what Melita did: handing Toast her rifle, finding and rattling a hidden steel drum. Toast blinked, and Rock Riders were there, raising spears and grenades.

Melita’s voice cracked, thinned as she called. “We are here with a relic from one of yours who died. This one carries it. You may know her.”

“We know her.”

"We know you."

“We know.”

All the weapons went down. And one Rock Rider, she saw, dropped their helmeted head into their own hands, their amulets trembling.  It came to Toast, cold in the blazing afternoon, that she might not have been the only one enduring a presence.

The troubled Rock Rider came down: Melita came forwards. They talked. Toast felt it was right to stay back, like the other Rock Riders were doing.  Finally, Melita came back. “Put the hair in her grave and it’s done. Don’t touch any remains while you’re there.”

Toast looked around. “Which way do we go?”

The Rock Riders pointed as one, up to the highest hill-cliff.

“Sky burial,” Melita said, drily. “Birds eat you.”

Toast eyed up the heights. They were almost, but not quite, as bad as the Citadel’s lower slopes. She inhaled through her front teeth. “All right.” The Rock Riders murmured with approval.

Melita coughed. “Ready when you are.”

Toast thought about Melita's rough voice and her limp and all the other things a Vuvalini healer could do, instead of falling off a hillside. “No,” she said. “I’ll go alone.”

The Vuvalini nodded. Stepped back. And brushed her hands together the way she had that dawn, when her work was done.


	3. the driver's privilege

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Redcandle17...who asked for Capable and Nux building new lives in the Citadel, and for some very specific sexytimes! Warning for menstruation discussion, oral sex, and 'red wings' i.e. menstruation sex.

Capable tried to feel enthused. Nux was going to begin teaching her to drive today. It was a pity she had the first day of the blood. It made her weary to her bones, however much sleep she had. She knew that she would anyway, as one of the leaders of the Citadel. Nux had gone to trouble to schedule one of the few remaining vehicles for their lesson. By the time she crossed the Citadel’s three towers to the Treadmill, she was already lagging.

Capable arrived at the Treadmill bay. It was one of her favorite places in the Citadel. Toast had told her, “You say that because you only saw the place twice before the Fury Road, and once was when we were escaping.” Capable had assured her it wasn’t that. The Citadel’s only exit was packed with technology, vehicles, and workers of all kinds. When she looked around it, she saw so many of the changes they had made. It was the start of what the Citadel could be, how it connected to the world outside.

Not all of those changes were happening easily. By the time Capable shed petitioners and admirers to get to Nux, waiting in the queue for the next Treadmill going down, someone else had gotten to Nux first. He was one of the Wretches who the Sisters had brought up, a bald old man with vital Before-time knowing. And he was giving Nux an earful.

“I hope you’re driving better today than you were last time I saw you. You nearly ran over two kids. I’m surprised you didn’t turn back and do it for points or whatever tally you keep.”

Nux was gobsmacked. “You remember it was me? For sure?”

The man shouted, “Of course I remember. I remember bloody everything. We didn’t have anything else to _do_ down there but – ”

Capable cleared her throat. “Was this Before?”

The old man fumed. “Just barely. Three bloody days before you lot came back and took over.”

“Don’t you talk to her like that,” Nux growled.

Capable hated raising her own voice, but this was one of those times. “Everybody. Calm. Down. Everyone in the Citadel’s agreed to new Citadel law. Those from the ground and those who were the Immortan’s people before. As part of that everyone gets a chance at redemption. You’re sorry, Nux, aren’t you?”

Nux stared right at her, blue eyes windows of sadness. “Holy V8, I am.”

The old man opened his mouth, thought for a second, then closed it again. “Just be careful. And wear a seat belt.”

The Treadmill queue moved.  Still fuming, the old man strode onto the Treadmill and popped up a ragged umbrella. He ignored them on the Treadmill down. When they arrived, as a final touch, he walked along the main road’s center for a while, blocking the entire way.

Capable looked over at Nux. “You’re being really patient about him. Thanks.”

Nux looked drained. He rubbed the tumors he'd nicknamed Larry and Barry, looking away. “Wish you hadn’t heard that.”

Capable squirmed around a cramp. “Not everything is…redeemable. But if we hadn’t done redemption where we could stand it, we wouldn’t have a Citadel left to start over with. And we do.”

They drove in slow silence for a bit. The base of the Citadel remained crowded. Shortly, Nux turned around, off the Last Road, and went north of the Green Tower, the one where the water was. “This is where we used to show the pups to drive. And uh, none of the…house…things are here?”

Capable sighed, remembering how strange these changes were to Nux. He'd never expected to survive the Immortan's cult, show a former breeder to drive, have to face up to what he'd done. “No.”

Nux stopped the car in a broad, flat area clear of stones. They swapped sides. “Time to drive,” Nux said, with a touch of his old bounce.

Capable boosted herself into the driver’s seat. It was shockingly different; higher, tighter, in the embrace of the vehicle. If she showed up to a settlement in this car, a fighting vehicle, it would throw serious weight behind her claims to Citadel power. It was a Wasteland throne on the move.  

“I like it! More than I thought…” Capable leaned forwards and touched a cunning crow’s head, welded from metal scraps and nuts. The crow’s head bobbled on its mounting spring, as if the car itself approved of her.

Nux leaned over, pointing. “All this is the dashboard but the only parts to look at are the oil, here, the km per hour, here, and how much you’ve driven, here.

“Is the seat belt here?”

Nux shrugged. “Enh. Those are rust-car parts. Things you find in vehicles you can’t drive any more. We don’t need ‘em. The key’s in the ignition. Ready to drive?”

“Ready to drive!”

It gave Capable a thrill to turn the key and hear the engine rev. Nux guided her with gentle touches. "So you turn the accelerator here and press the gas pedal here and AAAAAAAAAAAAA----"

"AAAAAAAAGH!" Capable shrilled as the car rocketed forwards.

Nux shouted, "Brake! Brake on the left! Left boot!"

Capable stamped down, hard. They both jolted forwards. Nux's arm snapped out, saving Capable from smacking into the dashboard. "Oh!" She gripped his arm.

He smiled. “Not bad for a first accelerate.”

“Not bad?”

“Just turn us AWAY from the Citadel out towards the nothing! Here, turn the wheel…” He covered her hand again. Capable relaxed. She felt like they'd moved beyond the guilt-shadow from before. They could be who they were again, dear friends and lovers. It was like Max, the road warrior, had said: _we keep moving._

They hooned around the sands long enough for the Citadel’s shadows to shrink beneath the lifting sun. By the time Nux asked Capable to take them to the shade, she started well enough, turned decently, and stopped eventually.

Capable clicked the ignition off and lifted up her sweaty braids. “It’s so easy to go too fast… ow. Oh. I need to fix my wraps. I’ve got the blood.”

“The what?” Nux asked.

“The blood. I’ll get blood on the seat here.”

Nux spun his body towards her. “Why is there blood? Did you get hurt and you didn’t say?”

Capable shrugged. “It’s fine. It happens to all women every month. Well, if we’re young and we eat food. It’s our womb getting ready for maybe another try having a pup.”

Nux stared at her, entranced. “You bleed, yet don’t die. For new life. So chrome. Does it hurt?”

“A little. I _really_ have to do this now.”

Capable arced up and unwrapped her lower half, carefully. She undid the most important set of wraps so she could tighten them again. One glimpse showed she was having a sudden surge of blood, fresh and bright.

Nux looked away with his adorable blush, biting his lips. “Gets my own trousers tight, you opening yours up,” he hinted.

Capable sighed. “I’d do it with you right now if I didn’t have my blood.” The Immortan had never touched them when they had the blood, hating to see the least trace of it.

“Does it hurt that much? I can just do, y’know, what you like best.” Nux put his pale hand over her blood-marked fingers, between her legs.

The idea of his soothing touch made Capable squirm. “You wouldn’t mind? Really?”

“I mind hurting you.” Nux sat back up and looked out. “War Boys, we were supposed to be tough. Not mind anything but dying soft. Those kids that old fella said I almost ran down. I didn’t see them. All I wanted was to get to die historic, make the armada. So I didn’t see them.” Nux turned back to her. “I don’t want to hurt you and not see it. See, you’re leaking aqua-cola, now.”

Capable wiped tears away with her clean hand. He still felt the shadow of it all. Like the Citadel's shadows, it shifted, moved around as your day went on. But it was always there. It half-broke her heart that he felt it yet. “Not because you hurt me. With the blood – I feel everything more.” She sniffed. “Toast wants to kill everyone even more than usual when she’s got it.” She tried to laugh, but Nux completely distracted her by lifting her other hand and, softly, tasting her blood.

Capable gasped. Nux smiled. “Tastes like a fight.”

She really laughed, and reached for him. “Try it without going inside me. Just petting me here…”

“Petting?” Nux said.

Capable explained, “Um, tuning me up.”

Nux grinned. It made him look wild and wicked, as passionately focused as he’d been on the Fury Road. He made a big show of using his water bottle to rinse his hands, rubbing them together with relish. “Don’t need any aqua-cola when you’re by my side. One fine, chrome tune-up coming up.” Capable parted her legs and let him touch her between her legs, working fingers between her lower lips. He vibrated those fast-learning blackthumb’s fingers upwards, just a touch, enough to make her vibrate in turn. She fell back against the seat, gasping. When she cried out sharply, “Ah!” just once, he took his fingers back.

Out of the corner of her eye, Capable saw him contemplating the new blood, then dabbing it against his tongue. His own breath hitched. “Tastes so metal. Blood and sex. Let me get down there. Please.”

Capable’s mind had gone deliciously fuzzy. “MMmmm, there’s not enough room. You could lean over?”

Nux’s smile was almost demented. “Better than that!” Nux threw an unseen lever and, CHUNK, the whole works moved. Capable sat bolt upright with a shriek as the seat slid almost to the back of the vehicle. “It’s so I can get in there and customize!” They laughed together as Capable unwound more wraps and Nux, slowed forever by past injuries, eased himself into the new space.

Once he was in there, Nux eased Capable’s last wrap out from her and the seat. “Gonna make you feel better _and_ bless the car with holy high-octane _and_ make a driver outta you for real. Once you make driver, you get your pipes blown in the front seat.”

Capable laughed, “Was this your plan the whole time?”

“Might not have done it today…but…driver’s privilege…lancer’s duty…” Nux buried his flushed face between Capable’s thighs. They were both sweating in the hot car cab. Nux’s scar-roughened mouth drifted over her thighs, giving worshipful kisses. When Nux’s tongue stroked her hot, constricted, aching cunt, she groaned with pleasure and relief. Capable spread her thighs wider, giving into the slide of his skin against hers.

Building arousal melted Capable’s aches. Nux’s adoring touch wiped away the stains of memory. His hands weren’t the only part of him that was preternaturally clever. Capable found herself gripping his smooth, well-shaped skull and shoulders as he made his mouth an engine of pleasure against her. His tongue and full lips, together, opened her, stroked her up and down. He did it again and again, like the rhythm of clear ground under the running tires. His reliable touch made Capable feel in control.

When Nux slid his tongue low, he uttered a revving purr that made his lips, too, vibrate against her. “There! Yes! There!” She arced her hips up into his face, shocked by her fast pleasure. Her cramps were gone, and her blood was forgotten, until Nux lifted his face to breathe. “Oh!”

A bar of blood was sponged across his lower face. Nux whisked out a threadbare bandana and swiped himself. “Now, lancer,” Capable breathed, “it’s your turn. Up.” She leaned forwards easily and pulled Nux to kneel straight by his always-sagging waistband. Both of them, together, ripped his dusty, threadbare trousers open. Capable smiled with satisfaction as his eager cock nearly bounced out, flushed and erect. Smooth and relaxed, she bent double and took that lance in her mouth. He tasted like a young man, sweat and salt and leather, he groaned like her mouth was Valhalla, and he shot down her throat like he'd been waiting for her all his life, instead of two days.

Nux keeled over sideways onto the passenger seat. “Any more orders, driver?”

Capable sighed divinely. “Duty done, lancer. War Boy. Nux.” They readjusted themselves. Nux's last caress was to rub Capable’s stray blood thoroughly into the seat leather with the bandana. Blessed the car and blessing my tailpipe.”

Capable laughed. “I’ll bless your tailpipe all right when we get back. Want to drive us back? I don’t want to hit anyone.” They moved around. Nux showed Capable how to work the seat and mirror adjustments.

The car roared forwards, only for a hundred meters or so. Capable felt Nux’s sigh when he slowed to a crawl. “When you drive slower, I can do this,” she said. And kissing his cheek, Capable let her arm rest lightly on his shoulder. She left it there for everyone to see while the car crawled back to the Treadmill.


	4. Helping Hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Left behind on the Fury Road, after making his way to Gas Town, the Organic Mechanic contemplates a fresh start, new freedom, and...is that...redemption? Nope, not quite!
> 
> Warnings for a corpse, gore, gross medical stuff, and cannibalism. Written for the 2018 Giftadumpster exchange in honor of the Fury Road war lords and other antagonists!

He looked down at the corpse, outraged. “You call this payment?”

The Gas Town mask shrugged. “Ya saved one of us, ya get the other one. You’re an organic mechanic. We thought this was up your laneway. Grade-A Imperator prime! Meat and gear.”

“What you left me. You’re having a civil war here, dead bodies are a surplus -- “

They slammed their door. “Item,” he finished, lamely.

Joe-damn it. This was his reward for picking shrapnel out of one man and mercy-killing another. He was left in a pipe-woven Gastown laneway with a dead, half-picked-over body.

“You and me, mate.” He did a quick scan. Fast diagnoses were second nature to him. His payment was a big bloke, the one he’d killed to cut short slow death from a head injury. That was a plus here, no one should be eating the brain anyway. Big with muscle, not fat: not a lot of scars, so, relatively young: calloused but not lumped.

What a blood bag this one would have made! But those days were over.

Right now, he actually felt all right offering this to a buyer. He’d been to Gas Town enough times before to know the first place to try. The problem was getting this hunk of meat to their location in one piece, fast, unbruised, and fresh. He managed to drag the carcass off the pathway to the pipe grid.

As he reached up to test a pipe above his head, a voice said, “Don’t mess with that! You’ll be sorry!”

He turned around, only to huff with laughter. “You and what war party?”

The skinny kid wavered. “They won’t let me scav the pipes. They won’t let you either.” A warning.

He scanned the kid fast. About thirty-five hundred days old. Probability and presentation said it was a boy. The toes were cut off his shoes so that he could wear them longer. He had an arm rash: he was red-eyed with blepharitis: his mouth was covered with a rag. His hair was dirty, but it was probably free of parasites thanks to the atmospheric chemicals. All par for the course in Gas Town.

“I’m not scavving the pipes. I’m scavving this.” He booted the corpse’s ribs. “I can take this from corpus to more for us. You help me and watch my back, and I’ll barter you up when we’re done. An arm’s worth.” It was the latest afternoon, and Gas Town’s troublemakers were starting to wake up.

The kid’s eyes widened. “Deal. Who’re you?”

“Nobody.”

He used to be the Organic Mechanic. Here? He was still figuring it out.

He’d been dragged along on the stupidest road war ever, chasing down the Bag of Nails and a rigload of breeders. Immortan Joe's favourite, Splendid, was a goner fast, knocking Organic's own chances at the Citadel down a notch. He’d been minding the old bird, Miss Giddy, the two of them fair spitting acid at each other, until the Immortan decided to off her as a scapegoat. Organic had taken his pound of flesh with relish. Only to realize, afterwards, there wasn’t much left for him on the run until they grabbed more breeders back. Organic's loss of value was shown while he was taking a dump. The whole damn convoy ripped off without him.

There had been nothing for it. He could be crow meat, or he could walk.

Organic had walked. At dusk, and at dusk again, sheltering and feeding from the road war’s shrapnel along the way. By the time he got to the Rock Riders they were ready to deal with a medic and pissed enough to talk.

According to them, the road war had blown back through.  The People Eater and Immortan Joe were both down, along with Imperator Prime, which left the whole Triumvirate up in the air. It seemed like Furiosa and her scav crew had managed to take the Citadel.He'd spent another day patching up some Rock Riders who hadn't stayed out of the way and a few War Boy deserters joining them. By the end of that day, he'd decided he wasn't up for yet another cult. They let him loose with an armful of don't-ask biltong, two gallons of sandy water, and the dilemma of where to go.

The Citadel? If he showed up there he’d wind up on his own dissecting table. Especially when they found out what he’d done to the Wives' ol’ gramma figure…

The Bullet Farm? The place was a pit. A literal sulfur-and-lead pit. They’d take him, all right, to put him to work keeping their mining slaves alive. That batch made the Citadel’s Wretches look pretty…

Gas Town? They were a pack of mad scientists, insane cut-throats, and recreational cage fighters perched on top of a decaying oil refinery. Which would be up for grabs, now, with Peeps down…

Gas Town it was, then.

Organic had shown up at the merciless Gas Town gates with his pants falling off his waist, peeling with sunburn, but still with every last tool in place. “Ready to deal and ready to heal,” he’d promised them. His last vial of genuine Before-time analgesic had bribed his way in while others got a flamethrower goodbye. He'd walked into the middle of a civil war behind the gates. Perfect timing for a flesh mechanic.

Here and now, he extracted his trousers’ belt and used it to tie the corpse’s ankles together, leaving a long trail of leather. The boy tilted his head. “What are you doing?”

“I’m hanging him and bleeding him. Like a Bartertown hog, but not as tasty. Lightens the load for when we hit the road. You here to help, get up those pipes and pull this belt over when I throw.”

Getting the corpse up was still agony. There was no dead weight like an actual dead weight. That had been the foundation of Organic's work at the Citadel: extracting the maximum value out of every upright person. Once they were dead, that was somebody else's job. Finally, the corpse was hung, head-down. While giving it a few minutes to settle, Organic decided on a skinning knife to make the cut. Blood cascaded. He thought of the Citadel again. The place ran on a razor’s edge. Good luck to the Bag of Nails and her crew in keeping it going. He was probably well out of the mess they’d make of it all.

Perched up on the pipes above the corpse, the kid squirmed. He watched the blood, wide-eyed. Muffled by his face wrap, he asked,  “You gonna drink that?”

“No. Don’t you drink it either. You should cook blood first.”

“Why’d you get a whole body?”

“I’m an organic mechanic. Fix what ails you, put you back together or put you out of your misery.”

The kid knocked his heels together. “We’ve got an organic mechanic in Gas Town already. In the Underbelly.”

Organic rolled his eyes. “Yeah, well, I’m different. I’ve got the knowing. I was taught by a real Before-Time medic, before he drank himself to death.” He gestured at the tattoo on his left arm. The kid looked impressed. Organic took it on board: no History types around here, or at least not running around loose. He decided to take his bluffing up a notch. “I can keep you alive with lumps, the clap, or the Rot. I can patch you up after a road war. I’ll even get your female to be a breeder, and a milker after that, if you’ve got decent tucker.” It was all the truth. He was a miracle man.

The corpse seemed bled out. Organic reached up to lower it down. “Hop down here. I’ll take the shoulders. You, grab this belt, keep the heels from dragging. We don’t want his ass on the ground. Our goal is keeping him clean. Ish.”

“Where are we going?” the kid asked.

“Barbecue stand. The big one.”

“Ooooh!” The kid hoisted with a will.

They lumped around the Gas Town laneways, the pipe lattice wrapping them both in a grid of shadows. It was treacherous going. There were slippery iridescent puddles here and there. Organic muttered, “If you’re gonna eat somebody, the arm’s the best part, ya know. Least parasite load.”

“What’s a parasite?”

“Tiny critter that lives inside you, stealing your food and blood.” It hadn’t been him, with what he’d done for the Citadel. He’d earned his keep. It had all been going so well. He didn’t know whether to hate Furiosa forever or be grateful to her ‘cause Angharad’s kid having Mister Dead as his daddy hadn’t been his fault.

The boy digested this quietly. “You ain’t from here.”

Organic said, offhandedly, “Yeah, I’m that much less filthy.”

“No. You know stuff and you’re talking…talking to me.” The kid was almost wistful.

Organic realized he’d fallen into it. At the Citadel, his whole life, there had been a horde of assistants and servant-pups. He’d been ordering others around as soon as he could bully. “I’m also walking. You need to be keeping up. Let’s move.” Organic kept his mouth shut the rest of the way. As they went, he thought.

They made it to the barbecue stand. The head chef was interested. There was high supply, but also high demand. Organic would get the worth of a quarter of the meat. Joe-damn it, he’d overbartered with the pup. He dealt for part of his compensation to be a meal right away.

“Ready for a feed, pup? Get your bib down and –“ Casually, Organic jerked down the kid’s face rag. Then he stepped back. The kid was nuke-burned, a mutant. There was a wet, broken notch of flesh from his left nostril to his teeth.

To the kid's credit, he didn’t run away. Free of the rag, his muffle was a slight lisp. “You fix all the flesh. Maybe…maybe you could fix me?” The boy’s tired red eyes met Organic’s.

“Hmmmm. Open your mouth.”

Organic's greatest achievement was back at the Citadel. Despite what he told people, it wasn’t the Bag of Nails and her smooth left arm stump. It had been another mutant: the Immortan's brilliant son, Corpus Colossus. Corpus was older than you’d think from his weird babyish body. Organic had grown up watching the previous medic pamper Corpus. Setting Corpus’ broken bones, doctoring his infections, and dealing with low-mobility problems had been a constant. He’d been twice as assiduous with the Immortan’s son as he had been with the Immortan’s breeders. Because, the day the Immortan died, Corpus’ life and power, the mind that made the Citadel work, were his. Corpus was the smartest person in the Citadel. Organic considered himself a close second, but being an ambulatory medic was a distinct advantage. Especially when you were in a position to blackmail endlessly. 

Did Furiosa know what the real treasure of the Citadel was? Was she smart enough to keep Corpus on? Could anyone there keep him alive? He’d find out soon enough if the Citadel stopped bartering food with Gas Town.

The boy was still waiting, patiently, twisting his rag in his hands. Organic lifted the boy’s chin and examined. Then he said, “Turn around. I need to look at all of you.”

At the Citadel, the Immortan’s son had been the only mutant allowed. Organic had been supposed to chuck _any_ mutants pupped by the breeders. This was a problem when facial clefts, the commonest mutation, varied every time. With this kid, there were no visible bone deformities. He was proportional. He was already smarter than Rictus had been. The palate was the deciding factor. Was it split, opening up into a kid’s skull and brain, or not? That was the difference between a devil’s mouth and a life that wasn’t worth it in this Wasteland.

“Arright. Open up. Moment of truth.” Organic used a small mirror to reflect light inside the small mouth. This kid’s palate was whole. He’d seen worse tooth alignment on Citadel full-lives.

It hit Organic like a runaway rig that he was free.

Free of the stupidity.

He didn't have to play by the rules of Immortan Joe's cult any more. There'd be no more War Boy clay-chalk paint getting ground into wounds. No more dumbass shaved heads when solar radiation would fry your epidermis in thirty minutes. No more sending second-rate Wretch concubines up to get syphilis-leprosy-Joe knows what in the People Eater’s chambers, while sending fine breeders who’d struck out with Joe down to be shredded. No more keeping the entire damn Citadel realistic about bondage and body mods. No more everything-but-cannibalism when human consumption was the best way to get value out of human muscle. He could do what he thought was best.

The Wasteland was about to get a lot more smart – and savage, too – simply to survive. And he was first in line. He could have his own impregnable door, people lined up making offers, adoring obedience. He could be a Joe here.

Organic pocketed the mirror. “Yeah, I can fix you. Two conditions. First, you take that for helping me, instead of the arm." A length of gut thread wasn't worth as much to him as a meal credit right now.

The boy twisted slightly. "Okay."

"Second, you want to learn what I know? Work for me?"

The boy gasped, eyes going wide. "Really?"

"Yup. Eat first. You won’t want to for a while after I sew your face up, believe me. You'll have a scar, like everyone else...” The barbecue chef gave Organic what his menu called a "bear paw," a fine big one. Organic tore the human hand down the middle, gave the kid two out of three digits. He sank his own teeth into the meaty ball of the thumb.  Joe-damn, that was good.

The kid inhaled his share. "You never said what I can call you? Sir?"

That was as tasty right there as the meat filling his mouth. Organic swallowed and said, “You can call me…Joe.” And he smiled towards the setting Wasteland sun, a ball of flame and promise. 


	5. rub along

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A smutty vignette with Furiosa and Max…Furiosa finally buys something from the Gastown sex toy vendors seen in [Shafted](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4591761/chapters/20019955). What she chooses puts Max in a guilty and generous mood. Handsy smut on the sweet side for this pairing.   
> For a delightful [YoukaiYume smutty art challenge!](http://youkaiyume.tumblr.com/post/169949183958/this-was-a-smut-prompt-for-smuttyartfictrade)

Furiosa looked around Gastown. This place never changed. Or did it?

It was midday at the edge of the oil refinery's stronghold. Furiosa leaned back against the Citadel’s rig while the trailing tanks were swapped around, a water tanker for a guzzoline tanker. The Citadel was so different now, seven hundred days after the Fury Road. She was starting to feel changes rolling faster than she was. The biggest change of all was waiting for her to take the plunge…

The tanker change had the dullness of routine. She took a quick stroll around the edges of Gastown’s entrance. The place was still warded by its unholy stench, still watched by the flamethrower-wielding, bribe-ready guards. Still lively with hawkers, beggars, the stalls where you could get a tire repaired or a fast, greasy bite to eat. But something had changed, here, too.

Finally, Furiosa figured out why this sliver of Gastown was reminding her of the changed Citadel. There were more women. Not that it took many to be ‘more’ by Gastown’s standards. One here, looking her in the eye. One there, returning a nod. If she was one of the Sisters, she thought, she’d ask someone about it. Then, she thought more: why shouldn’t she do it?

Furiosa put on her best not-looking-for-trouble saunter to ease over by a market stall. It was run by a woman and someone neutral-looking. “How’s business?”

The woman, short and solid, recovered first to gaze up at Furiosa, slack-jawed. “Uh. Uh. Imperator. Business is…good. Yeah, real good.”

Furiosa tried to sound casual. “Couple more women around Gastown?”

“Yeah?”

Furiosa cocked an eyebrow. “Do they want to be?” If she had a choice she’d never come back here again.

The stall’s owner narrowed her eyes in understanding. She lost her fear to lean forwards. “They brought themselves in, if that’s what you mean. The new boss helps. Got rid of Levy 69, you know what that was?” Her mate cleared their throat, elbowed her.

“Oh. Right. While you’re here…can we help you with anything?” The woman’s voice cracked with renewed nerves.

Furiosa finally took in the stall’s wares. She nearly laughed. Their barter table was covered in recycled rubber plugs, shafts, balls, and straps. They came in every shape that could be stuffed into or wrapped around a human.

Her lip curled. Not so long ago, she would’ve sneered at this as mediocre toys, compared to a hard hand and two tough bodies clashing. But she was one of the ones who'd started the Citadel's changes. Standing here today, she considered her companion. That impeccable fighting partner, her most steadfast friend, her lover: Max. What would he like best out of all this?

“I’ll take…” Furiosa hovered her left, metal hand over their table’s offerings. “I’ll take _that_.”

* * *

It was edging into evening at the Citadel. Max, having escaped the mess hall, found himself kicking around Furiosa’s room. Seven hundred days ago, it had been the private suite of the Immortan. Furiosa had taken it over to keep it from being turned into a shrine.

It was quiet as the heart of the Wasteland.

Some stonecutters had suffered to hack out its double-height ceilings. On one side, they’d carved out a cubby that sheltered the works for a Before-time bathroom, no hot water but everything else you'd want. For a long time, Furiosa had been crashing out on one of the old leather sofas in the front room. Max saw there was finally a sleeping nest tucked in the back of the empty bedroom.

Max went back there to feel it out. He dropped his bag of gear there, strode around. Nothing darted at the edge of his vision. If Furiosa could make this place feel less haunted, he wondered how it would be traveling the Wasteland with her by his side. They’d be going soon…

He peeled off what remained of his jacket, his boots. He sniffed, wrinkling his nose, and put the boots by the door. Going into the bathroom, he dug a rare sliver of soap out of a trouser pocket, rinsed his hands in running cold water.

Familiar, the movements remembered from his past, yet completely bizarre.

It was as he was wiping his hands on another minor miracle, a gray, threadbare towel, that he heard Furiosa arrive. He went out meet her.

Immediately, he could tell something was up. She looked unwontedly tense, the skin tight over her cheekbones, veneered with sweat. “I was hoping we’d…you’d…I got this.” She handed him a metal item from her palm.

Max accepted it, a flat, round tin, one half turning to cover the other half. He opened it. Again, it was strangely familiar.

Furiosa said, flatly, “It’s lube.”

Max’s lips parted. He breathed, “I hurt you...”

She exhaled, on the edge of a laugh. “Wasn’t that. I’m not getting any younger. We’re about to hit the road. I thought…” Furiosa shrugged.

Max closed the tin. “Don’t need anything that hurts anyone. You don’t like it inside, that counts.”

Furiosa shrugged. “It’s different with you.”

“What do you like? Along with the,” Max punched up with one hand, “Rough stuff.”

Max’s heart melted as Furiosa screwed up her face, thinking hard. She brushed her hand in the air over her hips. “A…trigger more than a piston.  It all needs lube…” She shook her head. “Listen to us. Talking like this, here. Can you believe how much things have changed?”

“Mph.”

Furiosa met his eyes. “You can say no.”

Max glanced at the bathroom. “More like…it’s how it used to be. Before. Like your tribe says it should be.”

It was Furiosa’s turn to make a noncommittal noise. Then, she said, “It’s good to sort this. Before it’s just us. Out in what it’s like now, in the Wasteland.”

“True.”

They stared at each other for a long moment. And then she was unstrapping her arm, and he was leaning forwards to help, because he couldn’t not.

Furiosa swayed towards Max’s warm, clean presence. Gastown always took it out of her. She liked that Max hated the place as much as she did, was as restless in this room as she was. After a day spent swaggering and projecting menace, she wanted to spend some time in…what it felt like to be with him. In the headspace that Max, deep down, felt the world should be like. 

Max’s helpful presence was as soothing as an engine making the right noise, purring reliably. He took her arm and nested it in his jacket, like always. When she wriggled like a maggot to get out of her waist brace and chest wraps, his hands smoothed the hot, constricting garments away. He knelt down to ease off her boots, slide away her trousers. “I need you to do one more thing,” she said. “Open that up again.” That was the problem with the little tin. It absolutely took two hands.

He did, and offered it to her. It was startlingly pure for something out of Gastown. Whitish-silver, translucent, smooth. He asked, “Do I? Or…”

She answered by swiping two of her own fingers into the surface, then lifted them fast. “Smeg. Should’ve washed.” Her touch, after a long dirty run, stained the purity with a swatch of grey.

“Just did,” Max said. He ran two fingers through the gel and lifted them to her, offering.

Furiosa found herself swaying on her feet. “How about,” she said, hoarsely, “You put that where it needs to be…”

His hand hovered above her crotch as he knelt, gazing up at her, until she said, “Yes. There.”

Max closed his eyes and slid his fingers between Furiosa’s thighs. He held his breath to feel coarse fur, her tempting, distinct clit, her rare tenderness. He pressed his fingers there, upwards, to let the gel melt. And, while there, he rubbed the knuckle of his thumb against her clit. The hard coil of her fingers in his hair was his reward. Something in her had sprung to life again. “Get those clothes off,” she said, hard and breathless. He scrambled out of them, graceless as she wasn’t, while she did her final saunter of the day towards the cushioned nest.

As she walked, Furiosa inhaled to feel her thighs sliding against each other. Damn. Now she knew why, in this changed Citadel, oils were being snitched left and right for underhand trade. Even the vendors back in Gastown, for all that they fawned over her, had demanded high barter. It was worth it.

She looked back over her shoulder. “Get over here and do…more of that.” She knelt down as he flung himself against the sleeping nest. Meeting in the middle, their mouths crushed together, crude and urgent. Max let her tongue ravish him for a long, hot moment. Furiosa was rocked to her core at his next touch: his slicked hand against one nipple, then the next, bringing that flesh to shocked life. She reached down and clamped his hand in place over her right breast. “That’s right. More.”

They both keeled over at same time. For once – phenomenally – she was almost on his lap. The sensation kicked memory into overdrive for Max. He hadn't held a woman like this since...before his world had ended. But this was Furiosa. The weight of her pressing him down, her metal-tinged smell, her skin, softened by a veneer of sweat, all made him reel. She was crushing his right arm, but moving her would break the moment. Again, he was on autopilot as his left hand stole around, burrowed where he’d lubed, and stroked.

Furiosa arced back. She found herself held, yet not, her ass supported by his thigh, his shoulder crushed by her. He brushed a thumb across her where it counted. Then his touch shifted, opened. He spread two fingers, opening her cunt but not entering. The pad of the base of his hand pressed against her hot spot. With the whole area slicked up, and his strong gentleness, it all felt good. Then those two fingers begin to stroke on each side while his palm rotated.

 “Max – fuck – that’s – how the – fuck!”

Max barely heard. His world had contracted to his left hand. He felt crude and clumsy, but maybe it was like the times he'd been forced to fight on that off side. Paying more attention paid off. Her flesh beneath his fingers was swollen, her clit alive enough to press against his palm like a demanding fingertip. When her whole works was slick enough for him to dip into her cunt very slightly, and she jerked with pleasure, her natural wetness meeting the hot lubricant. He felt like he’d won the Thunderdome.

Furiosa crammed her upper body against him, her face to his hot neck, clasping his head to keep from clawing him with her one hand. Her engine revving, wheels flying, rocking her hips to piston hot against his fingers. Coming hard enough to sate all her cravings. His flesh muffled her groans. His fingers stayed where she needed them to be until she could uncoil her hand from his sweating hair, lay it over his, stilling him.

They lay there afterwards in a daze, on the edge of exhaustion. Furiosa shifted so she was lying beside Max, not smothering him. She leaned up on her left elbow. “Your turn.”

Max butted his head against her shoulder, into her. “I’m good. Owe you from that time outside,” he muttered. He was half-good and more than half-hard but he wanted to give her this. “Both tired. Sleep…while you can.”

She rubbed her face against the top of his head again, breathing in the musky sweat she loved. Into his cowlick, she mumbled, “For a few minutes. I’ll… I’ll take second watch…” The last thing she felt was his pat on her hip.

When Furiosa opened her eyes, the light was different. Max was asleep, quiet, his thick cock at half-mast with dawn hardness. They’d both crashed. Losing themselves to lust and sleep would’ve killed them out in the Wasteland. But they’d needed it, all of it, this once. Remembering it would ease the rough days ahead, help them rub on together.

She straightened herself out, reached for the tin of lube. Quickly, she did the math about how many more times waited in the tin. She was pleased with the result. Then, she reached down to feel between her legs: still slick. Furiosa felt her mouth curl again, like it had yesterday. She was planning what she’d say to Max in a few minutes about not waking her for her watch. And then some.


	6. the bath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little Wasteland angst, a little fluff, a little smut, all around the indulgence of…a post-apocalyptic bath for Max and Furiosa. 
> 
> Inspired by [this delightful drawing by Youkaiyume. ](http://youkaiyume.tumblr.com/post/176426936873/have-a-very-lazy-sunday-bathtime-fluff)

It had been the craziest return to the Citadel that Max could remember. The Sisters had carried off the samples of plants Max had found around a faraway billabong. The War Boys were going mental over Furiosa’s winnings from a race, a Hilux ute. Others were crowding around the woman they’d brought back, the long-lost sister of one of the Milking Mothers. 

At last, Max and Furiosa had a calm moment face to face. 

Max wiped his face after guzzling aqua-cola. Worked his jaw. He began, like always, with a vehicle. “You didn’t want the ute?”

Furiosa shook her head. “I don’t want anything from Gastown. But…how about a bath?”

Max’s jaw dropped.

Furiosa explained. “There’s a tub in the Milking Mothers’ space. Way upstairs.” She gestured to the joyous tangle of Milking Mothers around the woman they’d brought back. “I think they’ll let us.”

Max only had time to nod before someone thrust a hubcap full of fruit at them, urging them to eat. They took handfuls to munch as they walked, across two towers, up hundreds of steps.  

When they arrived at the tub, Max was still cramming fruit in his mouth. He stopped chewing in astonishment.

This place wasn’t like the bathrooms Max remembered as a youngster, pre-apocalyptic spaces run with post-apocalyptic workarounds. The Milking Mothers’ baths were a long, narrow cavelet. Carved from the Citadel’s red sandstone, the floor had been worn smooth by women’s feet. This place had shaded light and tranquility and water at the turn of a tap. Hundreds of meters above the ground, it had safety, most of all. The Wasteland had never felt further away.

Showers were spaced out along its length. At the room’s end, below three long slits through the stone for light and air, sat a miracle: a claw-footed tub.

Furiosa gestured to a long, low shelf near the entrance, topped by a series of cracked mirrors. The shelf held more grooming items than the rest of the Wasteland. Max, shy, reached into his own pockets for his shearing gear. He hacked and scraped at his beard until only stubble was left. Furiosa, in wordless cooperation, cut away his wild hair. Seeing the two of them in the mirrors, both crop-headed, put Max at the edge of a smile. This was the opposite of his last Citadel haircut. Furiosa still put the short, matted locks into a basket to one side.

Then, Furiosa started to strip. Max was at her elbow instantly, undoing her waist bracer, placing her arm to one side. After a muttered thanks, she ducked under a shower for an instant. Max caught her slicking her black face paint away, scrubbing blood from her right hand. Max took this as permission to do the same. Under his own shower, desert dirt ran off him in rivulets. He stretched, feeling his skin for the first time in weeks.

Max heard a forceful, churning flow. Furiosa, lean and nude against the light, was filling the bathtub. He stepped over to watch clean water flow into white enamel. Only the sky, he thought, was that pure. At the halfway point, Furiosa turned the taps off. “Go on,” she said, quietly.

Max heaved himself in. Involuntarily, he groaned. This water on his skin was the best sensation in his entire life. Until Furiosa waved something in front of his face. A cake of soap.

He reached up and wrapped his fingers around both the soap and her right hand. And knelt, in the tub, to help Furiosa keep her balance as she stepped in, herself.

Max slid to one side to make room for her. She slotted perfectly beside him, her legs longer than his. Suddenly, the water rose up to their armpits. Max shifted as he felt something else start to rise, too. To distract himself, he started lathering up with the soap.

When he handed it over, Furiosa said, “Good to be back, isn’t it?”

She did not ask what he’d do next, if he’d stay, and that was a hundred mercies.

“Good to be here.” He watched her run a trail of white suds over one golden-tanned shoulder. “Be with you.” He reached out to follow the suds, trailing over her. Her skin was smooth over muscles, scars seamed cleanly shut. She was warm and alive in the delicious water. The slight softness of her breasts and belly were miraculous impossibilities, especially when she slid herself over him, astride.

Max stared into Furiosa’s green-blue eyes. Her own hand lingered down him, caressing his back, scars and hair and tattoos, as if she, too, felt something fine about him.

After that long moment, drinking each other in like their thirsty skins drank in the water, they leaned closer. To kiss at last.

Their mouths were sweet and clean after the fruit. They kissed slowly, luxuriously, slaking this final thirst. When Furiosa finally drew away, Max saw her mouth full and flushed into more rare tenderness. She put her single index finger on the center of his lower lip, possessively.

Beneath her in the water, Max stiffened. His cock was fully alive, now.

Furiosa realized it at the same moment he did. She laughed and levered onto her knees to grasp him at the root. He clenched his teeth at her incredible grip, the pads of her fingertips just brushing his balls. “Damn, Max. You’re such a full life.”

He made himself breathe. “You, uh…here?” The thought of all the other people who might come through made him subside.

Furiosa agreed. “Not here,” She whispered it, giving him a clench before releasing him. “My space. And, the water…”

Max nodded. Even in the heart of the Citadel, water was still precious.

Max handed Furiosa out of the tub. He remembered towels. But they didn’t need them here. By the time they’d walked the length of the showers, back to their clothes, the water had evaporated off their skin, leaving them cooled. All that remained of their bath was damp hair and sense of renewal. Plus, some energy to take down to Furiosa’s quarters. Max was glad that his trousers were loose on his post-wandering waist.

When they were dressed. Furiosa unbarred the door. Max blinked as it revealed a horde of the little Citadel boys called pups. “’Mperator? Are youse done?”

“Yes, pups. It’s your turn.”

Max’s eardrums were shattered by their screams of delight as they tumbled into the water, clothes and all. Max saw Furiosa grin. He understood, now, why she hadn’t wanted the ute. Why they'd both been glad to see the lost woman returned. For them, the Citadel’s luxury was something to give away. 

With that, they went down from that height. Into their own place together, less safe, far less luxurious. Where they'd give each other all they had: their selves.


End file.
